Families That Garden Together, Grow Together! – by Grange Co-op

Your Grange Gardener – April 2015

Family gardening reaps a host of benefits, but the bottom line is it’s a lot of fun. You’re getting outside, spending time together and creating memories, working toward common goals, and learning communication, responsibility, patience, and the cycle of life firsthand. Family gardening not only teaches your kids, it also teaches you how to effectively work together with your kids.

Plus, you get fresh, healthy produce your kids are more likely to eat. When your family works together to make a garden, you enjoy your own clean fruits, vegetables, and herbs that taste better than what you’d find at the market.

The phrase “garden work,” may be why many children shy away from helping mom and dad plant, pull weeds and water. Yes, gardening requires work and dedication, but once you are actively involved, that work feels more like satisfaction, accomplishment, and success. To instill those feelings in your children is priceless. So how about calling it “garden fun” or “garden time” or something more enjoyable than “work”?

Play in the dirt as a family! Realize you’re creating more than just a garden. You’re also making a pleasant environment in which to sit and enjoy the outdoors, beautifying an area that was once just a dog run or sandbox. You are creating a living, breathing, producing organism in your own yard: facilitating food production at your home.

A family garden can be any size or setup you desire. Here are a few tips to help get you started:

Give kids their own garden beds, rows, or sections. Each person in the family needs their own spot, whether a raised bed, container or ground plot. For younger kids, keep their section small so they don’t become overwhelmed.

Start with seeds. Planting seeds and watching them grow from small sprouts to food-producing plants in the garden is an awesome experience for kids. They learn the growing process from beginning to end, and it requires them to give sprouting seeds proper care to ensure a healthy life. Start the seeds indoors in a warm room, then transplant into the garden space once they’re ready, according to the seed packet’s instructions.

Teach throughout the process. You likely have a lot of gardening knowledge and tips you can pass on to your kids. Never miss an opportunity to teach and guide through the process. Children learn quickly when they experience firsthand through seeing, hearing, and doing. Make sure they take responsibility for their own garden tasks after you show them how. When they do it themselves, they better grasp both how to do it and also the importance of doing it correctly, as their work will have a direct impact on the results.

Decorate the garden. As discussed, gardening isn’t all about “work,” so have some fun with decorating your garden! Paint colorful garden stakes or stones to identify plants, add gazing balls or pinwheels, make a fairy house, or anything else to personalize and brighten-up your garden. Kids love craft projects, and there are lots of opportunities to spruce up your garden and put your kids’ creative stamp on it.

With your guidance, your kids are capable of growing most any crops in their garden. There are, however, some that are more suitable for children with colors, quick growth, and tastes. Here are some to consider:

Sunflowers

Lettuce

Radishes

Snow Peas

Patio Tomatoes

Strawberries

Nasturtium Flowers

Bush Beans

Carrots

Potatoes

Pumpkin

In creating and maintaining a family garden, you’ll enjoy a long list of character and family-building benefits along the way. Above all, remember to enjoy yourselves as you garden together as a family!

For more gardening tips, you can also speak with the Grange Gardeners at your local Grange Co-op garden center, or visit our Lawn & Garden article section on GrangeCoop.com by clicking the picture of Floyd at the top and then finding Lawn and Garden on the left side of the page.

Grange Co-op, a locally-owned cooperative founded in 1934, has grown steadily over the last seven decades to include seven retail stores, a grain elevator, agronomy center and a CFN cardlock fueling station. Store locations include South Medford, North Medford (Pet Country), Grants Pass, Ashland, White City, Klamath Falls, and Central Point. Shop Grange Co-op online at grangecoop.com.